I tried to peer out the window set in the main cargo bay doors as we came in for our landing on Whitefall, but it was too high, or I was too short, and I couldn't see much. Brief glimpse of some small buildings, plowed fields ready for planting, and scrubby half-desert. Didn't seem all that different from home, come to think on it. Wasn't long before Serenity settled to the ground, first time she'd landed since taking me with her, and Mal nodded at Zoe. "Already, sir?" she asked.

"Patience'll be twitchy, after this long," Mal replied. "If we don't want to get into a siege war, with her people ringin' the ship round, we should just as well get it all out now."

I went over to check the jerry-rigged wagon that half of the cargo was already loaded up onto, and the chain that we'd be using to tow it. Everything looked ship-shape, or maybe planet-shape was more to the point. Zoe headed over to the mule, nodded at me, and climbed on, turning the somewhat tired motor over into reluctant life. Mal was already opening up the doors.

There was lots of loading and unloading to be done quicky, as you might imagine - as soon as Zoe had got the cargo outside we all worked at unloading it off the wagon, piling it near the port thruster exhaust, and then loading up the rest once Zoe had driven back inside. Wash had landed not far from a homey huddled town, and though a few beefy and hard-eyed guys came over quickly to watch, they didn't say anything, seeming happy enough to let us get on with things as long as we were hard at work this way. Neither Mal nor Zoe asked any of them to help.

I do remember one thing I said as we were unloading the first half. "Patience sounds like she doesn't really fit her name." Mal and Zoe stared at me blankly after that, though Zoe kept hefting big fertilizer containers. "You know, patience as in the ability to wait for something? Doesn't sound like she's got that."

Zoe rolled her eyes and Mal chuckled once politely. "I've thought the same thing once or twice myself," he admitted. "But she's been more patient than she might have, considering how late we are already and that there's been no attempts on our lives so far."

"On our LIVES?" I asked.

"This is a rough world, and the harvest is a matter of life and death for everybody. Not saying that makes it right to shoot the couriers, but I can see why the notion would come into somebody's head," Mal said pensively, almost like he was discussing a book he'd read or something,

Soon enough everything was unloaded, and the crowd that had gathered outside was even larger - not hostile or anything, just waiting. "Listen, Wash, I know that you wanted to go into town, but I need you at the controls and on the conn while I talk with Patience," Mal said. All four of us were standing in the now much emptier cargo bay, a hurried conference.

"Why? You're not going to make me fly anywhere, with you and Zoe still outside and surrounded by Patience's town... oh, no. The port burner - you'd tell me to hit full exhaust on all her cargo?"

"Well... probably not," Mal said with just a ghost of a smile. "But I want at least the option of bluffing."

"I know what your idea of bluffing is, remember Mal?" Wash shot back, which confused me a bit. What did he mean? But Wash headed back up towards the cockpit, and Mal and Zoe made a point of checking their weapons before going outside.

"Umm, what about me?" I asked. "Could I go into town?"

"Err, not this time I think, Kaylee," Zoe told me with an annoyingly motherish smile. "You'd have to go alone, and this can be a kinda rough place. Also - well, we just might have to take off quick-like." I opened my mouth to say something automatically, but Mal cut me off.

"Yes, I know that the engines are all primed and ready..." Yeah, that had been exactly it. "But we're not really ready to leave the world if we don't have YOU, now do we?" he asked. I nodded, none too impressed that maybe my only experience of this new world would be unloading a wagon just outside the ship.

Since there was really nothing else to do, I went up and inside the number one shuttle. Looking out the rear window there, I'd have a fine view of the cargo and whatever happened out there, though I wouldn't be able to hear what anybody was saying. Well, not unless I was able to tune the shuttle's comm system into whatever frequency Mal was using to have Wash listen in... or would he not open that line unless he was giving the order to 'blast it?'

I decided not to bother with the shuttle comm, since things were already happening down below, and nobody was obviously talking into a communicator. An older woman, short with cropped gray hair, had emerged from the crowd of locals, and was talking to Mal and Zoe - not getting too close to them. No matter how out of place she might look as a leader, she had the attitude of someone who was in charge, and I didn't doubt that this was Patience. Zoe's hand stayed near the gun at her belt, but Mal wasn't paying any obvious attention to his own weapons, negotiating with the old woman in earnest over the rectangular barrels and something that I couldn't quite see - Patience had taken it out of a bag to show it, but I couldn't quite see anything except that it glittered. Gold coins? No, that wasn't quite right...

What was that? All of a sudden, Zoe had whipped around, drawing and pointing that pistol... for a second I actually thought that she had fired, but that was just because of the suddenness of the motion. She had turned away from where I was looking, towards the stern of the ship, and eventually I realized that somebody had been hiding there, half under Serenity, with a rifle. Eventually he came out, dropped the gun, and headed off to join the crowd. Mal shouted something, and he had to stop, just standing there in the middle of nowhere.

This was exciting, if somewhat tense, and I wondered what sort of a stunt Patience might pull next for Zoe to suss out. (And Mal too I guess, he hadn't been slow to figure out what was going on as far as I could tell.) Then, all of a sudden, it was over. Patience handed over the rough burlap sack; Mal took a quick look inside, counted, and made a 'give it up' gesture to Patience, after which she handed over a few other shiny objects. Then Mal and Zoe headed off obviously letting Patience's people at the cargo, heading back for the cargo bay doors. It seemed like the whole thing had ended with a pitiful little whimper.

And then, right before they'd have stepped out of sight, I saw Patience pull out her own gun and point it at Mal. I screamed out a warning that couldn't possibly be heard, and rushed out of the shuttle before the shot could be heard. Don't remember getting down to the cargo bay, but Zoe had Mal inside, he bleeding plenty from a hit to the upper arm, and the doors closing before I met up with them. She hit the intercom and tersely told Wash to 'take her up gentle and set us down again somewhere steady and safe, two minutes ago.' Mal was already trying to tear a bandage out of his own shirt without much success.

"What?" I asked, a bit confused. "She shot the captain. Ain't you gonna - I dunno, go back out and give them all whatfor?"

Zoe nearly blinked at me. "Just me, with the captain hurt, against the whole mob? I'm a good shot and tough in a close fight, Kaylee dear, but I ain't no Cortex supergirl."

"But to just..."

"It was just a message, anyway," Mal said with a bit of dry pleasure in his tone. "Could've probably taken my heart at that range, but she didn't want to. Not after striking the bargain. But she wanted to inform me in the clearest possible terms how dire things had been for her world on account of our lateness. And that's why she waited until we were almost inside, too."

"Don't talk so much, sir," Zoe said attentively. "It ain't helpin' stop the flow of blood any." She looked at me, and we could all feel Serenity take off - fairly gently as such things go, but still shaking a bit. I expected that Zoe would either head for the infirmary toot sweet herself to gather some supplies, or ask me to go, but she didn't even seem to spare any attention to that - she was pulling a bandanna or something out of the pocket of her rough brown shirt and tied it tightly around the very top of the arm, just below the shoulder and above the point of the wound.

But this was no time to just be standing around and watching, and I realized that if Zoe weren't gonna ask for me to run and fetch supplies, I could go anyway and take my own guess as to what she'd need without bothering her about it. Heavy adhesive bandages would be helpful but not critical if she knew how to get that tourneyket set up, but,..

Once in the room, (which was decorated in an appropriately blue shade and always seemed to feel very sterile and cold,) I grabbed the bandages, antiseptic to clean the wound, a few hypo needles of various sizes, some sugar-salt to help his body fight off shock until we (well, Zoe I guess,) could get him hooked up to a drip in here, and something that Wash had mentioned would help slow the heart rate without letting anything starve for the lack of blood. That would help make sure that even if the arm binding wasn't tight, not much more blood would be lost.

Zoe smiled in approval when I returned with the stuff, and told me to watch his arm and how to tell if it looked like the tourniket was too tight, (I'm still not sure how to spell the word, sorry,) while she attended to the needles and so on. Soon it was clear that Serenity had landed again. "Okay, this may be tough,,but we're going to have to carry him carefully to the med station," Zoe announced. "Ready?"

"What... just the two of us?" I asked. "What about Wash?"

Zoe openly scoffed. "I'm not going to run to a man like him for help just because he's got a Y gene... and a tool between his legs. I know I can carry most of the weight, Kaylee - I just need someone to add a bit of leverage."

"Okay, okay," I said, though I didn't feel certain. The way that Zoe carried her end, though, it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be. Wash showed up as we were heading through the corridor approaching the infirmary, and seemed more than a bit hurt by Zoe starting without him, and her apparent disdain. Once we had Mal in the chair-bed, she turned to Wash and explained, fairly convincingly, that we still needed him up in the cockpit just in case any of Patience's people came looking for us, to warn her before if he thought he'd have to take off again, and so on. Looking back, though, I think that she just wanted it to be me and not him helping take the bullet out.

That was weird, even if all I really needed to do was hand Zoe what she asked for. The bullet had gotten lodged up against Mal's arm bone, and she cut into him, (very carefully,) to take it out, and sewed him back up afterwards. They might not have a doctor here, but I'd have to say that Zoe's at least half as good as a one.

-----------

"Well, at least we got what we came for," Mal said a bit woozily when he came round an hour or so later. Wash had set Serenity flying off towards Paquin, which wouldn't take longer than a few days, and had come back to check on his boss once we were clear of Whitefall. "The jewels in that bag should fetch us fifty thousand on the right world - not Paquin, but maybe Persephone or Beaumonde. Of course, we'll have to give Badger his share, but still not bad."

"I don't understand why she didn't shoot you BEFORE handing over her side of the trade," Wash pointed out. "Or take it back, after she'd surprised you with that quick shot."

"Wouldn't have found it that easy," Zoe muttered irritably.

"More than that, it isn't her way," Mal said, though he looked a bit troubled by the question. "Patience is a canny mother dog, but she does run that place by her own code of honor, and she'll never lose face in the eyes of her people. Late though we were, we DID come and hand over the goods, and I guess that the townsfolk didn't want to see us killed or cheated on account of that. Paying us off fairly and then shooting me in the arm was probably a good solution to the question of how she should seem just and stern at the same time."

"I hope that we won't have this much excitement on Paquin," I said.

"Actually, I think we probably will have this much or more," Zoe mentioned, "but spread out much more thinly. Remember how little time we actually spent on Whitefall. A gunshot and having to fix it up is some excitement, but not a huge amount for such a small time."

"Ehh, whatever," I said, getting up. "Glad that you're alright, Mal. I, umm... I should go check on the engines. This is the first time they've been running without all the weight of those containers down in the bay."

"Does it really make a difference?" Mal asked, and then considered. "Doesn't it just make things better on them?"

"It's less strain to push, yeah," I said from the door of the infirmary. "But... well, if you've been carrying a heavy weight for a while, and then somebody takes it off and lets you run free, you might be so eager and so unused to the speed that you pull something in your leg, or your side, right?" Mal nodded, a bit uncertain. "Not sure if the same thing can happen to a ship like Serenity, but if it can, then I want to spot it early and soothe the hurt."

"Good enough," Zoe said with a trace of a smile before I turned away.

--------------

Everything seemed fine in Serenity's engine room - Wash wasn't really pushing her hard, even though we did want to get to Paquin soon, and by everything I could feel the ship was enjoying herself but not so much that it might be trouble. I ended up going back down into my bunk, activating the Cortex - and I found a delayed wave waiting for me. Must have come in before well before we landed - I'd been much too busy or anxious to be down here next to the source, and if Wash had spotted traffic coming through for me, he'd probably been too busy with the approach to think anything of it or remember to mention it to me lately. Curious, I tapped, wondering who it would be from - the family? Bester cursing my name again? One of the hometown crew?

None of the above, as far as I could tell. 'It's good to know that you've finally taken a great big step into the wide 'Verse,' the message said with no preamble, the words on my screen oddly stylish. 'It seems that our paths will cross on Paquin, so if you please, come to the Blue Bullfrog at eight in the evening of the 15th. Wear something colorful. I shall keep my own identity reserved at this time so that I may remain...' (and a blank space here before the signature,) 'Your Secret Admirer.'

Something was very strange here. I felt like I couldn't concentrate on thinking while the words hung on my Cortex, so I hit a button that would make them go away. (For a second I wasn't sure if I'd saved the wave or deleted it completely, and wasn't so worried.) A secret admirer? There had been a few boys sweet on me back home, but... but as far as I knew, all of them were still on Three Hills. Certainly none of them woulda been able to track Serenity and tell that we were headed to Paquin, even if for some reason they might go there, on a trip with family or some kind of business engagement.

Who, really, *could* have tracked me to Serenity and then figured out where we were headed? That question completely floored me, so I pulled up the wave logs and tried to track the message to its source. Got as far as Paquin and then to some sort of a public Cortex source bar, no luck at all trying to get through to their own records for who had paid for that particular screen at that time, and whoever it was hadn't used a wave account that was registered anywhere else. If I wanted to know for sure who it was... I'd probably have to go and make the rendezvous.

Later in the day, I did ask Wash a little about who might be able to figure out where we were going. He said that he hadn't had to fill out an official flight plan since they left Beaumonde with Patience's cargo - it had said that they were bound for Whitefall, (not mentioning Three Hills - that had been an emergency landing,) and nothing further - the offer for a job on Paquin had come through after leaving Beaumonde, and Whitefall didn't have any kind of flight authority that interfered with ships coming or going - which was probably part of why Patience had set herself up there. Neither did Three Hills, apparently, outside of the one city spaceport, for no-one had challenged Serenity when landing there or taking off in the countryside.

We did have a navigational beacon aboard, that could be read by various satellites and stations to tell who we were and where we were heading, and if somebody was paying attention to our course from Whitefall, it would be easy enough to guess that we were heading for Paquin. Or - to anybody who knew Serenity by name and Mal's reputation, they might have heard that he was expected at Paquin for the job, though hopefully whoever Mal and Zoe were going to be robbing hadn't heard that they were coming already. That would be bad.

"Going back to the beacon thing, I don't think that any nav array they've got at Paquin would be able to detect us yet," Wash said thoughtfully. "One of those big Athens navsats might have traced us far enough before we got out of its range, but to hack into one from Paquin... I don't think that anyone but Mister Universe could put all this together, honestly."

I blinked. "Who's Mister Universe? Some kind of verse-wide good boogetiyman, like the opposite of them storybook Reavers?"

Now it was Wash's turn to look surprised. "No, Mister Universe is real enough, though that's not his name I imagine. I... I told you that I was second in my flight class?" I nodded. "He was first, though he couldn't even have driven the mule safely without tipping it over, never mind an air-car or a shuttle. But he was great with computers, and used that to get him certified with all kinds of other things, just for the heck of it I think. Felt kinda bad that he cheated to beat me on the final scores, and I knew just how bad things went the one time he had to go for a practice flight without an autopilot on, so - he told me a bit about himself, and I've got a wave code I can use to call in a favor if there's ever a computer emergency. Not quite sure where he got to, but I doubt we'll see him on Paquin."

And this Mister Universe guy didn't seem too likely to be calling himself my secret admirer, so I let him drift to the far back of my mind and find a place for himself as a notion there. "Well, thanks. Just sort of wondered, don't think anything of it."

"You sure??" Wash looked up from the flight console, and I couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't sound like I really was hiding something, so I just shrugged and left.

-------------

"Okay, let's see... guns," Zoe decided, tossing out the seven of that suit, a kind of shotgun-looking thing. Wash played low with the three, looking depressed, and Mal tossed away a low-ranking moon because he was out of guns. Everybody turned to look at me. "What have you got for me, Kaylee?"

It was the evening of our leaving Whitefall, and after dinner, Mal and Wash had cooked up the idea of teaching me to play 'double-team.' "Okay, I... I'm not sure it's the right thing to do," I started, "but I'm going to double up. Having no guns..."

"Oh, no," Zoe moaned as I put down the two of moons and the five of beasts.

"Afraid so. Discarding two different non-trump suits to a non-trump lead of a third suit allows the lower ranking discard to function as a trump. So my two of moons trumps your gun, because none of them are ships and ships are trump this round."

"Okay, okay," Zoe sighed. "You've only got the one card left now, so what is it?" I laid it down as the lead to the eighth trick - the six of moons. Mal took that trick with the Best of moons, then led out the seven of trumps, winning that trick too.

"Hey, wait just a moment," I said, seeing something happen that hadn't been explained in the rules. "Mal's to lead to the last trick, except he can't play to it, because he doubled up too and has one less card than you too. So... does the lead pass around clockwise, through me, to Zoe?"

"Not clockwise," Wash explained, though he was frowning. "It's the last person who won a trick who still has cards... but that's still Zoe. What have you got?"

"Another gun," Zoe said, playing the six, and Wash put down his Big of Beasts with a disappointed frown. (Or is that just the Big Beast? Yeah, I think so.) "So, that means that Mal and I made our six tricks, just, and score for the deal."

"Did I do wrong to pull that trump trick?" I asked Wash, my unofficial partner for that round, though everything would change when the cards were next dealt. Mal was gathering up everyone's tricks and starting to shuffle them. "I mean..."

"No, the trump trick was fine," he said. "If my high card had been a moon instead of a beast, we'd have stopped them. But you could only play with the cards you were dealt, and me too. There wasn't any way to stop them by then."

"Alright." Mal started dealing silently, and I looked at the first few cards I got. A firefly card was the first, which was actually only the two of ships, but it brought a smile to my face anyway, which might make someone think I'd gotten a higher card if they were watching my face. The only lower ship in the deck was a mid-size shuttle.

"So, did you solve the mystery of who might be tracking us to Paquin?" Wash asked conversationally.

"Tracking us??" Mal asked, tossing a card across the table with too much force in his surprise and dropping it in Zoe's lap. "Somebody's tracking us?"

"Not, exactly," I muttered, sorry that I'd come to Wash.

"She came to the cockpit this afternoon, wondering if anybody might know that we were heading for Paquin," Wash said.

"Okay, fine," I groaned, and told them all about the wave that I'd gotten. "I... I'm not going to go and meet whoever it is, but..."

"No, I think that you had *better* go," Mal said softly. "Just to be sure that whoever it is, they ain't gonna be a problem. Zoe and I will mix with the crowd at the bar first, subtly, so that we can cover and protect you if need be."

"Subtly, sir?" Zoe quirked an eyebrow. "When were you ever able to manage subtlety in such a situation as this?"

"Whe we got the data pen from Jorgen Niska on Saint Albans, you weren't sayin' that I was unsubtle..."

"You were lucky that he didn't manage to lay eyes on you before you got close, that was all..."

I sighed. "Is every little thing such a big deal with you people?"

Mal was distracted from whatever somewhat-witty retort he was about to make to Zoe by my remark, blinked a few times, and started dealing again with Wash's third card. "Somebody taking an interest in who's on my ship and where it's going, yes, that's a big deal until we can demonstrate that it's not. Especially someone who's not forthcoming with their true identity for whatever reasons."

"Okay," I said, sighing slightly. Nobody said much until Mal had finished dealing, and I considered all of my cards. "Closed call on moons."

"Open call on ships," Wash sang back after Zoe passed.

"Pass," Mal said. "Not going to take off on my own after that."

"I'll reserve," I said. "Zoe, you going to take Wash up on his offer?"

"I... I think so," she muttered a bit distastefully. "Five on ships."

"Closed call for seven on moons," I said, waiting to see if Wash or Zoe would up their partnership bid. Neither did.

Okay, so now I had to recruit a partner to help me make seven tricks out of eight - I could either pick a player directly or call for a card that I didn't hold. "Call on the Best of Guns."

"That'd be me, too," Zoe said, smiling over at me. "Make your lead."

-------------

The Paquin spaceport was a fairly plain place - a sort of rectangular field, grass growing here and there where it hadn't been trodden down or blasted to death by ship exhaust, subdivided into lots of varying sizes and designated walkways. On one side the spaceport was pretty much open to farmland, on another there was a simple chain fence, on a third there was a sort of row of stalls like in a market - spare parts, fuel sales, repair contractors, and the like. The fourth side was the wall of a one-story building. Mal sent Wash off to see about getting Serenity some fuel to drink from one of the stall booths, and then we went to the building. This seemed to be a sort of spaceport office and terminal for anyone arriving or departing on a commercial liner. Mal paid off the rent for the stall in cash, and then we left by another way, heading into the busy streets of the town.

This was much more exciting, with street performers all around and large, unfamiliar animals being led or ridden down the center of the street. I wanted to dawdle, to linger over every little thing, but Mal and Zoe were walking ahead all purposeful, and I didn't really want them to leave me behind and only realize it after losing track - that might just make Mal really mad. "Do - do you know where the Blue Bullfrog is?" I asked them.

"Oh, yeah," Mal said, and something about the question struck him as funny. He turned to Zoe. "Do you remember the time we..."

"...met Li Shen there?" Zoe filled in, smiling. "She'd come dressed up as a mime, and wouldn't talk until we were out of sight. Now THERE is a person who could teach you a thing or two about subtle, Mal."

"Subtle? The whole bar was starin' at her!!"

"But not a one of them suspected who she really was," Zoe filled in. "I only hope that we'll be so lucky."

As part of their plan, Mal and Zoe had each dressed very differently from their normal style. Zoe was all glitzed up, wearing a slinky dark red dress, (the color of old blood, it occured to me, though I wasn't sure I liked that connection,) and her hair all down. Mal, on the other hand, was even more ragged than usual, not quite transient level of disreputable, but nearly so.

And me, well, I'd put on a tie-dyed sundress, since the message said to wear something colorful. "Well, we'd better tell you the route, Kaylee, and split up," Mal put in, and I realized that he'd been thinking of our various disguises at the same time as I had. "No point in all going in seperately if we walk all the way to the bar. I'll lead the way, Zoe comes next, and then you. Don't worry, it's a safe town and nobody should give you trouble. Down this way two blocks, then cross the street, up one and a half of the next. You'll see the blue sign..."

"Actually, that's something I've been wondering about," Zoe put in dryly. Mal looked up at her. "Just how are any of us going to be crossing the street, considering that there appears to be a gorram parade down it today?"

Mal looked up at the street, and it was as if he'd noticed the animals and the jugglers and assorted floats for the first time. "Hmm. Now, well, that is an unexpected complication," he admitted. "Doesn't seem to be too formal an affair - we could probably each run across one at a time if we plan it out right. See?" He pointed, and indeed, somebody was making a runner across the street between the jugglers and what appeared to be a trained bear.

That was the way we ended up doing it, each taking care to cross at different times, places, and in different ways, so that nobody would think anything of the pattern. I found the bullfrog sign without any problem, nerved myself and took a deep breath, checked on Mal and Zoe being there as I walked in without trying to be too obvious about it, and settled at an empty table for two. "Blue Sun Lager," I told the waitress. "Has anyone been, well... hanging around waiting for..."

"If they knew you were coming, honey, there'd have been a lot of guys waiting for you to show up," the waitress laughed.~~ "But I can't say that I've noticed anybody. I'll have your drink in just a moment."

I smiled as she turned away, and looked around the bar, this time not paying much attention to Mal or Zoe, just taking in the feel of the place. The blue and frogs theme, (often both at the same time,) was repeated a bit too often, but the effect was one of fun and whimsy, and so I didn't mind. The customers were a mix - some rather somber and depressing, farmers and factory worker types, and brightly dressed street performers chattering among themselves. What was behind the carnival atmosphere of Paquin, anyway? Did they keep this sort of thing, with the parades and what-not, up all the time, or had we just landed during some kind of a festival or something?

All of a sudden, somebody slipped into the seat opposite before I'd noticed her - a girl around my own age, with chestnut-red curls and a tiny little nose. "Don't worry, 'Lee, I haven't gone and switched teams. Just - well, maybe it wasn't the funniest joke to play, but I liked the notion of you sitting here waiting for some mysterious man and not expecting me."

For a second I was completely beyond speech. Then... "Melany? It... it was you that sent that wave?"

"Who else would have known to meet you here, tinker?" Melany laughed softly. "Come on... I know that I didn't say so, but I thought that you'd be eager enough to have a few drinks with an old friend, talk about the old days back home, maybe get into a little harmless trouble."

"Yeah, I just..." I looked around, suddenly worried. Sure enough, Zoe had noticed someone taking the spot across from me, (probably she and Mal had been just as clueless as I about the idea that my 'secret admirer' might be of the female persuasion, and far from spotting Melany before she got to me, she must have been slow to react even after that point,) and was heading over with a hard look on her face, pissed about missing the obvious. I waved my hand in her direction and flashed the sign that Mal had told me to use for 'all OK, don't interfere?'

Zoe stopped short enough that I was wondering if she'd have to windmill her arms, but there was no trace of uncertainty in her stance, (even in the high heeled shoes that were part of her disguise.) She signed to me herself - 'are you sure - repeat that?'

I repeated what I'd done before, adding 'yes, go.' Melany had noticed all the hand gestures by this point. "What's all the charades about?"

"Um, the crew of the ship I signed on with, and the captain," I said. "They - they were worried about me getting into trouble when I admitted that I had no notion of who'd sent me the wave or if I wanted to meet him... so they came along in case it was a dangerous man who was askin' for a poundin'."

"Oh, I see." Melany giggled. "Well, I guess you saved me from that, and I'm much grateful."

"Don't worry about it," I said. "So, um, what about... Barret? He nearby?"

"Somewhere on Paquin, I think, or maybe in orbit." Melany shrugged that off with a hand gesture of her own. "He doesn't mind me having fun on my own, if that's what you're worried about."

"Umm... okay," I said, a bit uncertainly. Looked out into the rest of the bar. Mal had apparently been noticed by someone who recognized him, though I couldn't tell if it was someone who wanted to kill him, someone who thought he owed him money, or someone who was sincerely glad to see him. Zoe had picked up on that too, and still unnoticed herself, she seemed to be hanging back and waiting for the right moment to interfere - if it came. Also, the waitress was coming back to the table with my beer.

"Oh, my mistake honey, I guess I just assumed it was a young man you were expecting," she said, handing over the bottle, with the ever-familiar blue logo on it. I paid her off from the pouch of spending coins that Mal had given me before we landed.

"It was... but apparently what I've got is an old girlfriend who likes to play dubious jokes over the cortex," I said.

"Mix me up a Londinium Lobotomy," Melany ordered the waitress in her best queenly tone. "Oh, and I can pay for your drink too, 'Lee - I'm all flush."

"Maybe you get the next round, then," I said, a bit uncertainly. "So, um, what've you seen since leaving home?"

------------

I guess I should explain a bit. Melany Waite grew up in the same small town as I did back on Three Hills, and we were pretty good friends from the time that I was fourteen or so on. She never quite felt that the wrench monkey routine I like was good for a girl, hence the nickname she has for me of 'tinker,' and I guess I'm just as clueless about some of her favorite party habits. But in a fairly dull and quiet town, she was the only other girl my age who I felt understood my passion for everything that life had to offer. We've also been just about equally boy-nuts ever since gettin' our girly parts in, which was another reason for spending time together.

About a year back, maybe not quite, there was a well-to-do tourist from Ariel, Barret Thomas, who went slumming on Three Hills and through the little villages of the Southeast desert country. Melany took one look and threw herself at him, and he was happy enough to catch her. I was never surprised at the whirlwind affair and planetary tour that they had together - I went along for part of it and flirted with one or two cute guys in the entourage myself. (The one I liked best was pretty much a local, actually, a hanger-on that Barret had found and invited when he first landed at Star City.) But I admit I was floored when Melany told me that Barret wanted to give her a lift off-planet, to take her with him when he left, and that she was going to do it.

"But what're you going to do there, out in the 'verse?" I asked. "I mean, I understand about wanting to see more than just these desert plains, but... maybe after you've finished that Cortex business course..."

"That doesn't matter any more, 'tinker," she said. "Maybe it makes sense for you to keep learning more in the safety of this little town, but for me... No, Barret's going to be teaching me more about brokering deals than I could ever learn on some go-se free Cortex seminar. And it'll be fun staying with him wherever he goes... for a little while at least."

That's all there was to it, more or less. I stopped trying to talk her out of it early - her parents weren't nearly so eager, and her father actually did lock her in the basement for a few hours, but then gave up when he realized that Melany'd probably be able to keep him from ever getting a moment's peace in his lounge down there if he made her miss Barret's flight, and so on. After she made her big farewell scene, I got dozens of waves from her, but over the course of a few months they gradually petered out. I hadn't thought of Melany in ages, which is part of why I hadn't considered the idea that the secret admirer signature was just the kind of joke it was like her to play.

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I woke up in an unfamiliar bed - much comfier than... well, than anything I'd slept in ever, as far as I could think of, which included the new bunk, the hammock, and my prefabbed jack-size bed at home. Then again, when I had been tagging along with Melany and Barret the first time around...

Melany. A wave of impressions from last night came back to me all at once, though not a one of them included a memory of the evening winding down or getting to wherever I was now. Hopefully, that lack was just on account of having too much alcohol, and not some of the other pleasures that Melany usually indulged in. Let's see now, scooch up just a little in bed, don't bother trying to open your eyes just yet, and try to sort things out in a natural order.

The Blue bullfrog. I'd had another drink in the middle of a reminiscence about the old days... was a bit concerned about Mal and whoever had found him, but he didn't seem to be in any dire straits as they left, Zoe still following. She'd waved back at me, not a signal this time, just a wave of the hand. (Or I hadn't remembered if there had been any extra significance to that.) Melany had started to tell me something about how she'd bought a ground-car garage on Lilac, fired all of the mechanics, turned it into a new aircar sales lot, and sold the business to somebody else at a ninety percent pure profit, which was apparently why she was buying me drinks.

"Wait a second, how did you have the money to even put up for the place?" I asked. I didn't comment on feeling sorry for the mechanics, because I felt Melany wouldn't understand any empathy for them. "Was it Barret's?"

"He lent me a little - he usually does, if he likes a notion that I've got," Melany said. "I'd already gotten a nest egg of my own from a few other deals I'd made. Anyway, what made you decide to sign up for a junker like Serenity? I'd always sort of expected you to sign onto some spaceship as a mechanic, but when I pulled the specifications..."

"Serenity's not a junker," I said, more sharply than I meant to. "She might not be the prettiest ship on the outside, or the biggest or the fastest, but... well, it's kind of a funny story how I ended up with her, and I don't regret a bit of it." That started me off about Bester.

And speaking of Bester... yes, there had been guys. One for each of us... mine had been a student stage magician, and he was VERY good with his hands for more than just pulling bunnies out of top hats. His friend, who Melany had started clinging to, had been a 'strongman' without a shirt on. Petherr, that had been the name of the magician, and I opened my eyes at this point, wondering if I'd find out that I wasn't the only one in the bed. It took a while for my eyes to pick out anything in the very dim light, so I impatiently moved my legs and arms around to confirm that yes, I was alone. Managed to hit a contact button on the wall that pulled up the drapes over a small window. Heard a very Melany-ish groan in respone.

"Oh, sorry," I muttered, and spent a while trying to get the drapes to stop halfway before giving up and letting them close all the way, now that my eyes were working better. Melany was sprawled out on the extender couch of the decently nice hotel room, and there was nobody else to be seen. Muttering to myself, I picked up my dress from the chest at the foot of the bed and started to slip it on. No stranger to drink really, but I'd never actually blacked out before, and I didn't hardly like the notion.

Melany was way too out of it to be roused to real speech, it turned out, so I tapped in a note for her on the room's Cortex screen, checked that my carry-bag was accounted for except for the spending money, and slipped out of the room. Guy behind the desk was really nice, and told me how to get back to the 'port without asking about how I'd gotten here and not known where 'here' was. The morning seemed to be well on, Paquin time, and a little bit less festive than before, though there were still street entertainers here and there, as I hurried back to Serenity's berth.

"Just who was that girl?" Zoe asked irritably as I closed the cargo bay doors up again. "I thought that you were expecting... or, well, if you're a fan of romance with the ladies too, there's nothing wrong with that, but you might have..."

"No, no," I said. "Sorry. Melany's an old friend from back home, and she wasn't really romancing me, just... just playing a bit of a gag. I'm sorry." Something occured to me. "Mal - he's okay, right? I mean, that guy..."

"Mal's all right, for the moment," Zoe said. "That man who saw him was an army acquaintance of ours. Mal managed to get him to a private place and, erm, impress upon him how important it was that certain people shouldn't realize either of us are here on Paquin. That's all."

"Oh, okay." I went over to the stairs. "Glad to hear."

"So what happened between you and your old friend, after you found out that it was her?" Zoe asked.

"Umm... we, well... we caught up on recent news in each of our lives, and jawed about old times, made some time with a few guys we met, and drank quite a bit. Ended up in, I guess it was her hotel room." Zoe's brow furrowed, and I realized what she might be worried about. "Don't worry, I didn't tell her anything about what brought Serenity to Paquin... well, she asked, and I just said I wasn't quite sure, that we had some cargo to take on or something like that."

"Good enough. You're sure that you didn't elaborate on that later... after more drinking?"

"Em- fairly sure."

"Okay then. A bit surprised that you didn't stay at the hotel. You do realize that we won't be needing you to work on the engines for a few days, right?"

"Yeah, but... I couldn't stay away without knowing that Mal was all right."

"If something HAD gone wrong, your concern would probably have been seven hours too late or more," Zoe said icily, and I groaned softly.

"I get it. So - what's Wash up to?"

"HE'S helping us with this caper." That hint, too, I couldn't help but get.

"So, there's no reason for me to hang around here?" I asked.

"None that I can see. Take this, though." Zoe walked across the cargo bay, rummaged around in a small container, and tossed me a little black ovoid. "Keep this with you, or at the very least check it OFTEN. When the job is done, I'll call you on that."

"Alright," I said. "I'll just pack a bag up in my bunk, and then I'll be out of your hair."

"Good enough."

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Out of sheer curiosity, when I bumped into Wash upstairs, I asked him what the job was about. He said that he didn't know much, except that they had to steal a tiny little grain of some extremely rare 'metal element' that he couldn't remember what Zoe called it. So I wished him good luck, headed back in town, and surprised myself a little by immediately remembering the route back to the hotel and Melany's room number.

Knocked on the door and was a bit surprised to have Barret open up. "Oh, I didn't expect to see you here," I told him.

"Well, I'm pleased that Melany found you, Kaylee," Barret replied with that charming smile of his. He was tall, with short, light brown hair, and his usual expensive-looking clothes.

"Glad that you came back over, Kaylee," Melany said, coming out of the washroom and wearing a dressing gown. "Your note sort of sounded like it might be farewell for good."

"Yeah, well... I checked in with the ship, and they don't need me for a while," I said.

"We've ordered room service and were going to eat out on the terrace," Barret put in. "There's probably enough to share."

"Umm, thanks, yeah, I didn't grab breakfast or anything," I admitted. Just at that point room service knocked on the door. The room still didn't look terribly fancy, but the staff were definitely very polite and helpful. Soon we were all arranged around a table out on the little fenced-in patio outside the room.

"So, what brings you to Paquin, anyway?" I asked.

"I'm brokering a security deal - trying to catch a robber. My client is worried that a small but rather valuable metal sample will be taken in the next few days," Barret said proudly. "I got the best anti-burglary team possible assembled and am serving as liason between them and the circus management."

"A... a metal sample?" I asked. "Like some kind of rare element?"

"Well, yes!" he agreed, sounding delighted that I knew of such things. "Dubnium. Just a little speck about as big as a grain of sand."

"Oh, boy," I whispered. What did I do now??

TO BE CONTINUED...